Tellingly, Frankl found that those who survived longest in the concentration camp were not those who were physically strong, but those who retained a sense of control over their environment.

Frankl’s message is ultimately one of hope: Even in the most absurd, painful, and dispiriting of circumstances, life can still be given a meaning, and so too can suffering.

 

Life in the concentration camp taught Frankl that our main drive or motivation in life is neither pleasure, as Freud had believed, nor power, as Adler had believed, but meaning.

 

According to Frankl, meaning can be found through:

 

1. Experiencing reality by interacting authentically with the environment and with others.

2. Giving something back to the world through creativity and self-expression, and,

3. Changing our attitude when faced with a situation or circumstance that we cannot change.

 

"The point," said Frankl, '"is not what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us."

 

 

Metz, T. (2013). The Meaning of Life (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). [online] Stanford.edu. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/life-meaning/.

 

Many historical figures in philosophy have provided an answer to the question of what, if anything makes life meaningful

Such talk about the meaning of life only had arisen in the past 250 years or so

 

For example

· Aristotle and the human function

· Aquinas And beatific vision

· Kant and the highest good

 

The author of this page also goes on to say for the readers to think about Koheleth, the presumed author of the biblical Christian Old Testament book “Ecclesiastes”

 

Nietzsche on nihilism as well as Schopenhauer when he remarks that whenever we reach a goal, we have longed for we realize “how vain and empty it is”

 

These are all examples of accounts of which highly ranked purposes a person ought to realize would make life seem significant if at all.

 

Supernaturalism

Most analytic philosophers writing on meaning of life have been trying to develop and evaluate theories e.g., fundamental and general principles that are meant to capture all the particular ways a life could have meant.

 

• Supernaturalism - (of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature:

 

• Naturalism - the philosophical belief that everything arises from natural properties and causes, and supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted:

Supernaturalism theories are views according to which a spiritual realm is central to meaning in life. Most western philosophers have conceived of the spiritual in terms of God or a soul as commonly understood in Abrahamic faiths.

 

In contrast naturalist theories are views that the physical world as known partially well by the scientific method is central to life’s meaning. It is important to note that supernaturalism (a claim that God (or a soul)) would confer meaning on a life, is logically distinct from theism (the claim that God (or a soul) exists).

 

Although most who hold supernaturalism also hold theism, one could accept the former without the latter (as Camus did), committing one to the view that life is meaningless or at least lacks substantial meaning. Similarly, while most naturalists are atheists, it is not contradictory to maintain that God exists but has nothing to do with meaning in life or perhaps even detracts from it.

 

Over the past 15 years or so, two different types of supernaturalism have become distinguished:

 

1. extreme supernaturalism, according to which spiritual conditions are necessary for any meaning in life. If neither God nor a soul exists, then, by this view, everyone’s life is meaningless.

 

2. moderate supernaturalism, according to which spiritual conditions are necessary for a great or ultimate meaning in life, although not meaning in life as such. If neither God nor a soul exists, then, by this view, everyone’s life could have some meaning, or even be meaningful, but no one’s life could exhibit the most desirable meaning